Os 12 trabalhos
Brazil,
2006, 90 min
Shown in 2007
CREDITS
- dir
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Ricardo Elias
- prod
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Van Fresnot
- scr
-
Ricardo Elias, Claudio Yosida
- cam
-
Jay Yamashita
- editor
-
Willem Dias
- mus
-
André Abujamra
- cast
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Sidney Santiago, Flavio Bauraqui, Vera Mancini, Venessa Giácomo, Francisca Queiroz, Cacá Amaral, Lucinha Lins
- source
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Politheama Filmes, Rua Conde Silvio Alvares Penteado, 56, 05428-040 São Paulo, Brazil. FAX: +55-11-3819-6332. EMAIL: producao@politheama.com.br.
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COMMENTS
Ricardo Elias attended.
OTHER
City of God and Bus 174 (SFIFF 2003) gripped viewers with their chronicling of the poverty, violence, injustice, drug addiction, abuse and police brutality that two million homeless children endure daily in the urban jungle of São Paulo. The equally exciting and eloquent The 12 Labors could be seen as a prequel to Bus 174. “Neighborhoods denote classes, streets denote who you are. Man, depending on where you were born, your story is written even before it starts.” Thus begins the account of 18-year-old Heracles, just out of reform school. On his first day as a motorcycle courier, Heracles—like his Greek demigod namesake—must overcome 12 hurdles of increasing difficulty. Fortunately, he receives the help of sympathetic characters who, much like mythic deities, appear when he most needs assistance. Heracles’ struggles render him a faithful embodiment of what the Greeks called pathos, the experience of virtuous struggle and suffering that leads to self-respect, confidence and a sense of possibility, if not fame or immortality. In a metropolis where congested arteries run thick with 300,000 motorcycle delivery boys, Heracles’ own existence reflects the city’s chaos and its youth in crisis. The film’s lyrical. omniscient voice-over narrative counterpoints the hip inner-city soundtrack and energy-infused urban cinematography. Young thespian Sidney Santiago, who deservedly won the Best Actor Award at last year’s Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, perfectly personifies the somber Heracles, whose imagination, poetic sensitivity and artistic talent may be his salvation.
—Cathleen Rountree
FACTOID #10
In 1960, Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, which has inspired many women to jump into fountains, was pulled from the San Francisco International Film Festival’s program by the distributor and replaced with Roberto Rossellini’s Night over Rome.
